510 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
between the cliff and the north wall of Pueblo Bonito (Jackson, 1878, 
p. 442). They were still there, clean and sharp-edged, when Mindeleff 
photographed them 10 years later (pl. 2, fig. 1; pl. 5, fig. 1). Com- 
parison of Mindeleff’s 1887 views and that of Martin (pl. 2, fig. 2) 
shows that many of the scattered fragments had disappeared before 
1920. Because of their accessibility, it is reasonable to suppose that 
these missing ones had been split and broken into smaller pieces and 
used in the several buildings Richard Wetherill constructed locally 
between 1897 and 1910.3 
Our Bonitians feared the Braced-up Cliff. All the diverse features 
they built beneath it—pine props, rubblework, buttressing masonry, 
and banked adobe—were underpinnings designed to prevent the cliff 
from toppling upon their village. Their fears were amply justified 
as we now know from the destruction caused when the giant cliff 
finally gave way in midafternoon of January 22, 1941. House-sized 
fragments and countless tons of lesser pieces hurtled forward and laid 
waste the spectacular northeast quarter of Pueblo Bonito, including 
its outside wall from Room 189 south and east to Room 182 and in- 
wardly to Rooms 99, 70, 266, 263, and 258. A 2-ton block of sandstone 
half fills Kiva G (pl. 6). Fortunately, the three- and four-story 
north wall of Rooms 14b, 299, and 297 appears to have escaped with 
only minor damage. 
The Braced-up Cliff has fallen, but our data show that two other 
major, if less destructive, falls occurred previously and that both came 
from the section of canyon wall next on the west. This section, which 
still stands and still offers a daily threat to the empty ruin, apparently 
gave the Bonitians little if any concern. They did nothing to support 
it but, on the other hand, built several houses and a kiva at its very 
base. Herein lies a new and unsuspected danger to Pueblo Bonito. 
REFERENCES 
Dovetass, A. BF. 
1935. Dating Pueblo Bonito and other ruins of the Southwest. Nat. Geogr. 
Soe., Contr. Techn. Pap., Pueblo Bonito Ser., No. 1. 
HEWETT, Epaar L. 
1921. The Chaco Canyon and its ancient monuments. Art and Archaeol., 
vol. 11, Nos. 1-2. 
1922. The Chaco Canyon in 1921. Art and Archaeol., vol. 14, No. 3. 
HOLsINGER, S. J. 
Report on the prehistoric ruins of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Or- 
dered by General Land Office Letter “P”, December 18, 1900. (MS. 
dated Phoenix, Ariz., Dec. 5, 1901, in General Land Office, Wash- 
ington, D.C.) 
2? The one fall for which we have a date is that reported by Frank McNitt (1957, p. 111). 
In the autumn of 1895 while Richard Wetherill and the S. L. Palmer family were camped 
at the base of the cliff immediately north of Pueblo Bonito a mass of sandstone dropped 
from above and narrowly missed members of the party. Throughout the years there may 
have been other, equally close escapes. 
